GRAND JUNCTION — Lawmakers are backing away from a volatile health care reform provision that calls for end-of-life counseling and has spurred criticism that “death panels” would ration care and decide who should live and who should die.

But in Grand Junction, where end-of-life care is measurably better than most other places in the country, health care officials say they are more concerned with the issue of funding for end-of-life and transitional care that adds to patients’ quality of life while saving money.

“It is unfortunate that politics and rhetoric are driving away good policy,” said Dr. Michael Pramenko, a Grand Junction family physician, who has been invited to speak at President Barack Obama’s town-hall meeting in Grand Junction on Saturday.

“Outrageous” notion spread

The notion that end-of-life medical issues will be decided by panels has been spread by right-wing talk-radio hosts and by former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin, who Wednesday reiterated her belief that Obama’s reform plans will lead to rationed care. Some of the most volatile confrontations at town-hall meetings on health care reform have centered on this issue, and it is expected to be a focal point of protests when Obama visits Grand Junction.

Obama and other Democrats have called the allegations “outrageous.”

But Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration “entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly.”

The provision would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, learning about hospice care, and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

Health care officials in Mesa County, which has been shown in a Dartmouth University study to provide quality end-of-life care at lower-than-average prices, aren’t alarmed by the potential exclusion.

Providing care top priority

Christy Whitney, director of Hospice & Palliative Care of Western Colorado, said end-of-life counseling is well-intended but not necessary. Providing care is.

When patients are released from hospitals in Grand Junction or when they face chronic, life-threatening illnesses, they can receive transitional care designed to ward off expensive crisis or hospice care designed to make death as comfortable as possible.

Patients are encouraged to complete medical directives that specify what kind of care they would like to receive.

“We believe that having people make these choices public and do it legally before they are sick and in a dire position is important,” said Steve Hurd, director of the Marillac Clinic, which provides care for the low-income and uninsured.

Whitney called the death-panel criticisms “a bunch of baloney.”

“Death is such a scary subject for some people. But I think it’s annoying that people can take something innocuous like giving advice and turn it into a ‘death panel,’ ” she said.

She pointed out that a national study has shown when people are enrolled in hospice and choosing how much and what kind of care they want at the end of life, they live an average of 29 days longer than those with the same ailments not receiving hospice care.

“We are not about hastening death in any way,” she said.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

“It will cost you less”

“Rep. Mike Coffman said that if the final health care reform bill didn’t have a requirement that members of Congress had to sign up for the public option, he would personally put in an amendment requiring that. It got huge applause, like a public option is going to be such an inferior program.

“It’s not necessarily going to be an inferior program. You’ll have a full network of providers. It will cost you less. It will have higher quality standards than any private program. It’s basically a Medicare-for-all program. I wouldn’t hesitate to sign up for a well-designed public option. Just like I wouldn’t hesitate to sign up for Medicare if I was able to.”

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